Tag Archives: Mexico

A few months ago when Secretary Gates and the Department of Defense listed Mexico as one of the countries in the future that face destabilization. At the time the Mexican Government and many in America scoffed at the idea. But now the reasoning for DoD’s warning is becoming apparent and probably sooner than anyone expected.

Historically, Mexico’s internal problems have been with Zaptista and other rebels in in its southern provinces. While these rebels have certainly been formidable and been the occasional thorn in the Government’s side, they have been something that the Government has been able to deal with. These groups have mostly just been a cause for Rights Activists in the U.S. and elsewhere, but no big deal.

The new threat in Mexico is scary, well-funded, and a real threat to Mexico and even the SW United States. This threat is the battles between various drug cartels and their battles with the Mexican police force and government.

Over the past half-year battles have raged in northern Mexico between these cartels. People have been murdered, villages pillaged, and women raped. It has gotten so bad that Ciudad Juarez has been determined the most dangerous city in Mexico and Mexican government had to send its military into the city. What makes this scarier is that Ciudad Juarez is literally on the U.S. border and shares the Rio Grande with El Paso, TX and there are indications that these drug wars are seeping into U.S. territory with an increase in drug-related murders and other criminal activity in places along the border from Houston to San Diego.

With this recent development of the Mexican army entering Ciudad Juarez it greatly increases the likelihood of a Mexican Civil War, however hopefully this is a minor threat and will not spill over throughout Mexico. As long as the cartels can say divided against each other there is a good chance a civil war can be avoided.

The Mexican army’s best course of action may not be to stop all the violence but only to maintain law and order in its towns and cities and protect the innocents not involved in the drug trade. It may be in their best interest to allow the drug cartels to battle it out and attenuate their numbers and, hopefully, influence.

But a long-term solution to this problem with the drug trade is more complicated. Most importantly is that the government needs to ensure that it is providing opportunities for economic growth, aka in needs provide job growth. There also needs to be good local governance and infrastructure improvements. The government needs to ensure that it or peaceful entities are providing the services and security people need rather than the cartels. They must not allow the cartels to do their jobs.

For the United States the threat is certainly not as dire, but it needs to watched closely; fortunately the Obama administration is doing so. It was reported today that the administration is looking at the possibility of deploying the National Guard to the border (but isn’t that more of a Governor’s decision?). Certainly there are political considerations to be made here, we don’t want to be “occupying” our own territory with the military. Nor do we want to get directly involved militarily with an internal Mexican struggle aside from perhaps providing equipment and logisitical support to Mexico’s army.

Nevertheless this situation needs to be watched closely and our media and people need to take this more seriously. How can there be such a major crisis right on our border, but no one seems to know or care? This threat in Mexico is both among the most serious facing U.S. Foreign Policy and also one of the best opportunities for us and Mexico to counter the drug trade and to help Mexico along in its next step towards modernization. Remember it wasn’t until the 1990’s that Mexico became a democracy, they still have a long way to go.

No, what you see above is not part of an underground La Raza goal planning briefing, it is part of the new advertising campaign for Absolut Vodka in Mexico. Obviously playing on Mexican nationalist sentiments, Absolut implies that in a perfect world, about 1/2 of the United States would be Mexico. This advertisement completely makes a mockery of national sovereignty and potentially only feeds the building sentiment in the SW U.S. and in Mexico about the re-conquering of “Mexico territory”.

I am not one that typically calls for boycotts or silly actions aimed at making a political point. I thought the call for a French boycott in 2003 was ridiculous and changing the name Frech Fries to Freedom Fries was even more so. Even in this instance I do not call for the absolute boycott of Absolut, although I would fully support someone who made that decision on their own. For me, the choice is easy, I don’t drink so I basically boycott all alcohol. Nevertheless, whether or not one chooses to boycott Absolut, at the least all consumers should contact Absolut and vent their disgust at such an ad campaign. It is completely inappropriate.

Now I recognize that this is just an ad campaign. I seriously doubt Absolut vodka actually support the reconquista. I also would not be so concerned about an ad campaign such as this if it were not playing on a real issue with a real movement behind it. If they did the exact same ad with Canada claiming the Pacific Northwest or with Norway claiming Sweden, I wouldn’t really care because they are not really issues with any movement. But the reconquista movement is moving forward and is a real threat.

I recognize that anyone that dares make such a claim is automatically labelled as racist. Fine, call me racist. Personally, I couldn’t care less what race, color, creed you are; I just care about my country and preserving her sovereignty. But even there I am not as hard core when it comes to illegal immigration or border control as many off my peers on the right. However, I do believe that groups like La Raza have the ultimate goal of seeing SW U.S. return to Mexico. Signs of the reconquista movement are everywhere, they were around back in the mid-1990’s as well.

One of my favorite bands and perhaps the largest influence on me becoming politically minded was Rage Against the Machine (even though we disagree on practically everything). They regularly sang about revolution and dropped jabs about reconquista and Mexican nationalism.

In addition to La Raza, who tries to downplay their nationalist tendencies, there is also the Mexica Movement, who calls for the complete reconquest of North America by her indiginous people and the National Will Organization that calls for the standard reconquest of the American Southwest.

While I personally think the reconquista movement is not a major threat at the moment, the more I read about it the more I think that there is the potential for trouble in the future; almost Islamic-fundamentalist like trouble. Since the 1970’s and 80’s people have been talking about flooding the American SW with hispanics from Mexico in order to facilitate such a revolution. While I think that on an individual basis, legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico come here with the intention of providing a better life for themselves and their families, there are well-organized organizations who are encouraging these movements for more sinister purposes.

Ultimately, I am not ready to make the full leap into the conspiracy of the Reconquista, at least as a major movement, but it is something to be watched and monitored. Controlling our borders is essential, but not to keep Mexicans out, but simply because we have laws about entering our country and they need to be upheld. For me the issue isn’t immigration it is legal sovereignty. As many hispanics, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, Asians, etc can come to our country as can make it for all I care, I just want them to do it legally. We have a process for a reason, use it.

P.S. The people living in the American SW would likely fight to death before allowing Mexico to take it over. The SW is prosperous, modern, and generally well governed and free. The last thing they want is a country with the poor leadership and infrastructure of Mexico taking it over. Mexico can barely run the land they have, let alone attempting to take over a huge swath of the United States. What a joke.